• SGF Akume Counters: “Tinubu is trying, Wait Till 2031”
By Abiola Olawale
Political tensions appear to be soaring in Northern Nigeria as prominent Arewa political leaders have spoken out about what they called growing discontent with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, claiming that the latter is marginalizing the North despite its overwhelming electoral support for the President in the 2023 presidential election.
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and some northern-based socio-political groups maintained that the North, which contributed well over 5.6 million votes, approximately 64% of Tinubu’s total votes, is being undermined and marginalized in terms of budgetary allocations, infrastructure development, and key federal government appointments.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the ACF, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, alleges that Tinubu is sidelining the north despite the massive support he got from the region during the 2023 elections.
Dalhatu recalled that on October 17, 2022, an interactive session was held in Kaduna with presidential candidates of leading political parties including Tinubu, who made promises to address the challenges facing the north.
He said: “In that meeting, we presented to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a written address containing details of the issues of urgent concern to the people of Northern Nigeria. In turn, he gave us his own written document containing details of the issues he believed were of concern to the north and how he intended to address them.”
Dalhatu added that northerners went out in their numbers on February 25, 2023, and cast their ballots for Tinubu. According to him, 5.6 million out of the total 8.8 million votes garnered by Tinubu in the election were from the north.
“And yet, two years into the four-year tenure of President Tinubu, the feeling among the people of the north is, to put it mildly, completely mixed. To our surprise, those who did not support him, did not vote for him, and hardly wished him well, have emerged from nowhere and are trying to push a wedge between him and the north.
“Whether or not they are succeeding, we do not know. But we cannot pretend not to observe that President Tinubu’s budget priorities, his infrastructural projects, his appointments, and other executive actions have, over the last two years, largely sidelined northern Nigeria”, the ACF BoT chairman said.
His statement came after a former Kano State Governor and 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, echoed similar sentiments.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ dialogue on the 2025 Constitutional Amendment in Kano, Kwankwaso accused the Tinubu administration of disproportionately channeling national resources to the South, particularly the President’s home region, at the expense of the North.
“From the information available to us, most of the national budget now appears to be going in one direction. A government that takes resources from across the country and invests only in one part is not acting in the national interest,” he stated.
However, in his response, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Senator George Akume, while representing Tinubu at a Kaduna forum on Tuesday, defended the Tinubu administration’s commitment to equitable development and urged northern leaders to exercise patience until 2031 for the presidency.
Citing an unwritten agreement from 1999 that promotes rotational presidency between Nigeria’s North and South, Akume insisted that the South is entitled to complete an eight-year term.
“The North will be eligible for the presidency in 2031, not 2027. Nigeria will not cease to exist. We need patience to arrive at our turn,” he stated, emphasizing the need for unity and stability.
